A number of attempts have been made to eliminate the aforementioned difficulty, for example, by providing the landing nets with a collapsible structure. Among the schemes proposed for accomplishing this may be mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,340,874, involving a rim which is unfolded and secured by use of a series of hinges. U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,272, on the other hand, employs a rim which unfolds, using a series of three tubes, two of which are hinged together, with the second tube sliding along the third. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,727,328, the rim is stored in two pieces and connected after deployment from the handle.
Other nets using the concept of assembling the rims at the base of the handle include U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,471,273 and 3,579,890.
Still another type of fishing net is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 2,683,321, in which the rim is hinged at two points, the base of the handle, and the point furthest therefrom.
Additional collapsible nets are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 270,641; 407,709 and 1,490,048.
Although the nets taught in the patents mentioned all have utility to some degree, an analysis of their functional elements shows inherent design flaws within their structure, for example, problems with assembly, tensile strength deficiencies, poor compressibility characteristics, and other problems.
Many of the deficiencies of the prior devices mentioned were overcome in U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,790, which teaches a collapsible fishing net apparatus having a telescoping and collapsible rim assembly, a collapsible handle assembly, a yoke assembly for receiving the rim and handle assemblies, and netting which is attached to the rim assembly.
The apparatus taught in the latter patent has notable advantages over the devices which preceded it in a number of important respects. It makes use of a simple design which is correspondingly easy to assembly or disassemble. The net apparatus is collapsible to one third of its extended length and one fifth of its extended width. Furthermore, as a consequence of the fact that it minimizes stress points, for example, by having a single hinge point in the rim, and because the rim and handle portions are permanently attached to each other, the apparatus is capable of successfully resisting the forces involved in the process of landing large fish.
Notwithstanding its superiority over other collapsible landing nets, however, a number of areas have been discovered which could benefit from improvement. Among these may be mentioned the fact that length of the net's handle represents a compromise between a desire to have a handle that extends far enough to snare fish at a convenient distance, and a conflicting desire to have a handle short enough for compact storage. Furthermore, in the act of using the net, a torquing force is frequently experienced at the point where the yoke assembly attaches the rim assembly to the handle. Resistance to such force would be benefited by desirably altering the nature of the yoke-to-handle attachment.
Although the design of the fishing net described in such patent is relatively simple, advantageously, it could be made even simpler, particularly with respect to assembly and disassembly. In addition, use of the net has disclosed areas of construction which could in some circumstances be prone to failure, and such use has suggested ways in which these might be strengthened to advantage.
Finally, while the net's simplicity and minimal number of components help to provide inexpensive construction, collapsible nets in general tend to be more expensive than their non-collapsible counterparts, and measures to reduce their cost and extend their useful life are desirable.